Alex Keble's FA Cup semi-final match-ups: Midfield battles key at Wembley

• Alex Keble (@alexkeble) is a football journalist who specialises in tactical understanding, analysis and predictions of all aspects of the game.

Coventry vs Manchester United

• Kick-off time: 15:30 BST, Sunday
• TV channel: ITV 1
• Home 11/2 | Draw 19/5 | Away 4/9

Mark Robins is not afraid to take the game to supposedly superior opponents, as Wolves well know from their chastening 3-2 defeat in the quarter-final, and a fearless approach is precisely the way to ruffle Manchester United.

Clearly Erik ten Hag’s side are favourites and will most likely win simply by having better players in key moments, especially given their experience at Wembley compared with Coventry City.

Throughout the campaign United have won matches without playing particularly well, so it’s easy to imagine Bruno Fernandes carving open a defence that conceded three at Birmingham at the weekend.

But if we are to get a major upset on Saturday, then it will take place around Ellis Simms.

In the Wolves game, Coventry midfielders repeatedly sought out a killer forward pass into Simms who, dropping off the front line into space, acted as the fulcrum for wingers Milan van Ewijk and Haji Wright to run off him.

That is the simple strategy Robins will go for after every attacking transition, not least because this could expose United’s biggest ongoing flaw: the enormous gap between their back-pedalling defence and erratically-pressing forward lines.

Casemiro doesn’t have the legs to cover the space, which only gets bigger in games when United are forced to hold the vast majority of possession.

Coventry won’t sit back, which could leave Ten Hag’s players dallying on the ball in the middle of the park, lacking a passing option (because Coventry will have every man behind the ball) and vulnerable to being picked off.

Watch out for Simms dropping into the space where Casemiro is supposed to be, turning, and feeding a Coventry winger on the break. It’s what Bournemouth did over and over again in the 2-2 draw last weekend.

Manchester City vs Chelsea

• Kick-off time: 17:15 BST, Saturday
• TV channel: BBC One
• Home 8/13 | Draw 16/5 | Away 4/1

The first FA Cup semi-final of the weekend should closely follow the 1-1 draw between the sides in the Premier League in February; there is no reason to assume either Pep Guardiola or Mauricio Pochettino will change much from that game, which tells us that – once again – Rodri and Conor Gallagher will be the most important players on the pitch.

Pochettino deployed a very aggressive – but low block – 4-4-2 formation, allowing Man City’s centre-backs to hold the ball (hence their 70% possession) but snapping furiously into tackles when the ball entered their midfield line.

The idea was for Nicolas Jackson and Gallagher to block passes through to Rodri, and for large periods of the match it worked.

City, forced to go around the outside, fell into Chelsea’s pressing traps, and from their low starting position Pochettino’s side would then counter-attack quickly behind the high City line.

Jackson was superb that day, as were Raheem Sterling and Cole Palmer, pouring forward as a trio to create chances.

It was a pretty simple strategy from Pochettino but a highly effective one thanks to the risks taken both in pressing hard in the middle third and in committing bodies on the break.

Cut off the supply line to Rodri, and Man City can be beaten. That’s Gallagher’s job, although last time the sides met there were also plenty of times when Gallagher had to drop and directly challenge the Spaniard.

Their tussle was game-defining – or at least it was until Pochettino went too defensive in the second half.

It was only after Pochettino switched to a 5-3-2 formation in the 71st minute that Man City, now camped in the Chelsea half, began to find spaces.

Chelsea dropped deeper and deeper, either tiring as the game went on or, more likely, responding to Pochettino’s nervous substitutions, inevitably leading to Kevin De Bruyne producing an equaliser for Rodri in the gaps that opened up 30 yards from goal.

Gallagher, then, is the most important player on Saturday for another reason: his hard tackling and boundless energy must set the tone - and maintain the tone.

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